Google Doodles sexist, racist alleges feminist group
01 Mar 2014
A women's group seeking to end the sexualisation women and girls in media has targeted Google Doodles, saying it displayed an anti-women bias.
An analysis of Google Doodles from 2010 to 2012 by the group Spark Movement, revealed some:
Of the 445 individuals in Doodles featured on its various homepages throughout the world, an overwhelming 357 were men, with 275 of the men white. Only 77 Doodles celebrated women, and only 17 of these were women of colour.
No women of colour were honoured in a global Doodle (Doodle seen everywhere around the world) until 2013, when American jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald was featured.
Although women made up over 50 per cent of the world's population, they made up only 17 per cent of Google Doodles honouring people from 2010 to 2013.
White people made up 91 per cent of global Doodles and 74 per cent of total Doodles honouring people from 2010 to 2013.
Of the 26 per cent of Doodles honouring people of colour, only 18 per cent honoured women of colour–that was only 4.3 per cent of every Doodle honouring a person from 2010 to 2013.
Spark says, Google Doodles were as powerful as textbooks, classrooms, and museums and while the cute, fun animations and sketches that appeared on Google homepages might seem light-hearted, especially when they were accompanied by quirky games and animation, the reality was that these doodles had emerged as a new manifestation of who we valued as a society - a sign of who mattered.
According to the report compiled by the group, 2013 was ''the first year that celebrated a woman of colour with a Global Doodle (doodle seen across the world on all Google home pages), which is basically the highest honour that Google gives to historical figures".
The report further points out that there had still not been a single Asian, Latina or indigenous woman featured in a Global Doodle until February 2014.
Spark Movement, executive director, Dana Edell has leveled allegation at the internet search giant, that as the information centre of the world, it was presenting a skewed and imbalanced vision of who created knowledge.
In an online petition on Change.org the group has called on Google "to be more diverse in its representation of the world's historical figures and commit to partnering with us as they go forward with that effort."
